Reviving Ophelia

by PIPHER, MARY PHD

• ISBN13: 9780345392824
• ISBN10: 0345392825
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1995-03-01
• Publisher: Ballantine Books

Summary

Why are more American adolescent girls prey to depression, eating disorders, addictions, and suicide attempts than ever before? According to Dr. Mary Pipher, a clinical psychologist who has treated girls for more than twenty years, we live in a look-obsessed, media-saturated, "girl-poisoning" culture. Despite the advances of feminism, escalating levels of sexism and violence--from undervalued intelligence to sexual harassment in elementary school--cause girls to stifle their creative spirit and natural impulses, which, ultimately, destroys their self-esteem. Yet girls often blame themselves or their families for this "problem with no name" instead of looking at the world around them. Here, for the first time, are girls' unmuted voices from the front lines of adolescence, personal and painfully honest. By laying bare their harsh day-to-day reality, Reviving Ophelia issues a call to arms and offers parents compassion, strength, and strategies with which to revive these Ophelias' lost sense of self.

Author Biography

Dr. Mary Pipher is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Lincoln, Nebraska. She teaches part-time at the University of Nebraska and is also a commentator for Nebraska Public Radio.

Table of Contents

Preface	11	(6)
Saplings in the Storm	17	(12)
Theoretical Issues---For Your Own Good	29	(16)
Developmental Issues---``I'm Not Waving, I'm Drowning''	45	(29)
Families---The Root Systems	74	(27)
Mothers	101	(14)
Fathers	115	(16)
Divorce	131	(15)
Within the Hurricane---Depression	146	(20)
Worshiping The Gods of Thinness	166	(20)
Drugs and Alcohol---If Ophelia Were Alive Today	186	(17)
Sex and Violence	203	(29)
Then and Now	232	(16)
What I've Learned From Listening	248	(12)
Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom	260	(22)
A Fence at the Top of the Hill	282	(13)
Recommended Reading	295	(2)
Index	297

Excerpts

Reviving Ophelia is my attempt to understand my experiences in therapy with adolescent girls. Many girls come into therapy with serious, even life-threatening problems, such as anorexia or the desire to physically hurt or kill themselves. Others have problems less dangerous but still more puzzling, such as school refusal, underachievement, moodiness, or constant discord with their parents. Many are victims of sexual violence.

As I talked to these girls, I became aware of how little I really understood the world of adolescent girls today. It didn't work to use my own adolescent experience from the early 1960s to make generalizations. Girls were living in a whole new world....

Even in our small city with its mostly middle-class population, girls often experienced trauma. How could we help girls heal from that trauma? And what could we do to prevent it?

This last year I have struggled to make sense of this. Why are girls having more trouble now than my friends and I had when we were adolescents? Many of us hated our adolescent years, yet for the most part we weren't suicidal and we didn't develop eating disorders, cut ourselves, or run away from home....

But girls today are much more oppressed. They are coming of age in a more dangerous, sexualized, and media-saturated culture. They face incredible pressures to be beautiful and sophisticated, which in junior high means using chemicals and being sexual. As they navigate a more dangerous world, girls are less protected.

As I looked at the culture that girls enter as they come of age, I was struck by what a girl-poisoning culture it was. The more I looked around, the more I listened to today's music, watched television and movies and looked at sexist advertising, the more convinced I became that we are on the wrong path with our daughters. America today limits girls' development, truncates their wholeness, and leaves many of them traumatized....

What can we do to help them? We can strengthen girls so that they will be ready. We can encourage emotional toughness and self-protection. We can support and guide them. But most important, we can change our culture. We can work together to build a culture that is less complicated and more nurturing, less violent and sexualized and more growth-producing. Our daughters deserve a society in which all their gifts can be developed and appreciated. I hope this book fosters a debate on how we can build that society for them.

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Excerpted from Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.